2020 Presidential Election Forecast: Biden A Heavy Favorite

With the 2020 Presidential Election less than four months away, Joe Biden is well positioned to defeat Donald Trump in the November election, with my model giving Biden a 90% chance of reaching 270 electoral votes. Compared to 2016, Biden is in a significantly stronger position than Clinton was at this point in the race. Not only is Biden’s national polling lead larger than Clinton’s was at this point in the race – almost twice as large in fact – far fewer voters in 2020 are undecided or supporting third party candidates, reducing the chances of a large swing towards Trump in the coming months.

Compared to 2016, Biden’s Lead is Larger, and Fewer Voters are Undecided

Year	Leading Candidate	July 13th National Polling Lead	3rd Party + Undecided Voters
2016	Hillary Clinton	4.6%	20.6%
2020	Joe Biden	8.9%	8.7%

Source: FiveThirtyEight

The share of voters who are undecided and supporting 3rd party candidates is important for one major reason: Historically, many voters who say they will support 3rd party candidates early on end up changing their mind later in the race. In July of 2016 for example, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson was averaging nearly 10% in national polls. Come November, however, he received just over 3% of the overall vote. A smaller number of 3rd party and undecided voters in 2020 compared to 2016 reduces the amount of uncertainty in the final outcome.

This does not mean, however, that Trump has no chance of winning. The election is still almost 4 months away. And while Biden’s current polling lead is roughly 9 points, historically leading candidates in July don’t end up maintaining their July polling lead until the election; since 2000, the July polling leader’s winning margin in November was about 2 points smaller than it was in July, indicating that the race may tighten slightly in the coming months.

July Polling Lead Versus Final Margin of Victory

Year	Leading Candidate	July 13th Polling Lead	Final Margin of Victory	Decline in Lead	Win Electoral College?
2000	George Bush	4.0%	-0.5%	4.5%	Yes
2004	John Kerry	2.6%	-2.4%	5.0%	No
2008	Barack Obama	6.0%	7.2%	-1.2%	Yes
2012	Barack Obama	2.5%	3.9%	-1.4%	Yes
2016	Hillary Clinton	4.6%	2.1%	2.5%	No
2020	Joe Biden	8.9%	NA	NA	NA
2000-2016 Average	NA	3.9%	2.1%	1.9%	NA

Another silver lining for Trump: he doesn’t need to win the national popular vote in order to win the election. Polling has consistently shown Trump performing best among whites without a college degree, a demographic that is over-represented in most of the competitive states where the election will be decided, such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. How Trump performs in New York or California – and the impact those states have on the popular vote – will be irrelevant in determining whether or not he wins the election.

Still, even with the electoral college giving him a boost, Trump is in an extremely perilous position. Biden’s national lead over Trump – approximately 9 points – is historically large; not since 1996 has a candidate led by that large of a margin at this point in the race. If it were to hold, it would be the largest popular vote margin since Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in 1984, eclipsing both Obama’s win in 2008 and Clinton’s re-election in 1996. In order for the electoral college to save Trump, he needs to cut down Biden’s margin to around 3 points, and right now he is nowhere near that figure. Simply put, Trump needs a major shift in the race between now and November in order to win re-election in the fall.

Below is my election forecast as of today. The model is based on a combination of 2016 election results, 2020 national and state polling, and a historical analysis of past elections. I hope to incorporate additional data into the model at a later date if possible, as alternative data sources such as Facebook Likes were tremendously valuable in 2016.

2020 Election Forecast, As of July 17th

Candidate	Joe Biden	Donald Trump
Chance of Winning	90.0%	10.0%
Average Electoral Votes	327.8	210.2
Projected Nationwide Popular Vote	52.6%	45.5%
Chance of Winning Popular Vote	98.5%	1.5%

*0.4% chance of 269-269 tie in electoral college, but this is included in Trump’s chance of winning, because Republicans are virtually guaranteed to control more US House delegations. Probabilities calculated by running 10,000 simulations of the election.

2020 Projected Election Map, As of July 17th

Safe: >95% chance of victory for favored party; Likely: 80-95%; Lean: 65-80%; Tilt: 54-65%; Toss-Up: 50-54%. 270 electoral votes needed for victory.

Competitive States

Likely Democratic: Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, Virginia

Lean Democratic: Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin

Tilt Democratic: Arizona, Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, North Carolina

Toss-Up: Georgia

Tilt Republican: Ohio

Lean Republican: Iowa, Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, Texas

Likely Republican: Alaska, South Carolina

8 Comments

Sean says:

July 17, 2020 at 7:28 pm

Really interested to see a decline in the coming months, especially with Biden basically sitting in the sidelines these past few months. He won’t be able to keep this passive campaigning up forever, and interested to see if/how his notably iffy off the cuff campaigning will swing things back.

Stuart says:

July 17, 2020 at 7:36 pm

Well done. Will be watching Georgia. It’s been a long time since they voted blue in 1992.

Alvin Baron says:

July 17, 2020 at 8:55 pm

I like your 2020 Election Forecast, As of July 17th. Hope it holds this high through election day!

Ian says:

July 17, 2020 at 10:53 pm

Great article, things are looking good!

Will Raderman says:

July 17, 2020 at 10:54 pm

Very crisp analysis.

Jordan says:

July 18, 2020 at 12:14 am

really concerned about: Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, and even Virginia.

Also would love to see N analysis of the increased margin of error given voter suppression and the likely lowest turnout of any election in recent history.

- Noah Baron says:
  
  July 18, 2020 at 1:54 am
  
  Hey Jordan! Definitely agree on most of those states; Trump won most of them in 2016 for a reason. Virginia however I think will be a safe state for Democrats due to the expanding (and very liberal) DC metro area.
  
  In terms of voter turnout, I have to disagree. Turnout in the midterm elections was the highest it has been in decades, and most data indicates that voter turnout in 2020 will exceed that of 2016. Voter suppression does have an impact, but most studies have shown the impact to be relatively small. And several of the states you mentioned (WI, PA, NC, VA) have Democratic governors who won’t be trying to suppress the vote. Although some of those states have voter suppression laws on the books.
  
  Regardless, good pollsters take voter suppression into account in their likely voter models. And it should also be reflected in the 2016 election results.
  
- Noah Baron says:
  
  July 27, 2020 at 2:36 pm
  
  Hey Jordan! Definitely agree on most of those states; Trump won most of them in 2016 for a reason. Virginia however I think will be a safe state for Democrats due to the expanding (and very liberal) DC metro area.
  
  In terms of voter turnout I have to disagree. Turnout in the midterm elections was the highest it has been in decades. Voter suppression does have an impact, but most studies have shown that the impact is relatively small. And several of the states you mentioned have Democratic governors who won’t be incentivized to suppress the vote.